The extensive collection of police forensic negatives casts a fascinating light on the shadowy underworld of Sydney between the wars. In the mugshots we encounter people of that world - thieves, breakers, receivers, 'magsmen', false pretenders, 'hotel barbers', dope users, prostitutes, makers of false oaths - and the occasional murderer. And within this medium of crime and accident scene photographs we are able to view, sometimes in extraordinary detail, their physical milieu - the mean kitchens, bedrooms and parlours, the pubs, boarding houses, corner shops and residentials, the garages, back lanes and byways of a city that is both eerily strange but all too familiar.